1
Marland Yarde 'faster' than before horrendous knee injury after turning to top sprint coach to revive England career
Marland Yarde is using one of the world’s top sprint coaches to relaunch his England rugby career after overcoming a horrendous knee injury that saw him undergo three operations to make it back onto the pitch for Sale Sharks.
ADVERTISEMENT
Yarde was injured against Newcastle in October 2018 with the severity of the injury raising the prospect of his 13 cap England career could be over but the former Harlequins wing battled back to play again one day short of 12 months after the injury to prove the doubters wrong.
Remarkably, the 27-year-old heads into Friday night’s home Gallagher Premiership clash with Leicester Tigers showing the power and pace that has always marked him out as a special try-scoring talent.
Crucial to his fightback has been the influence of renowned sprint coach Jonas Dodoo, who is best known for guiding long jumper Greg Rutherford to Olympic glory and helping Chijindu Ujah run the 100m in 9.96ses to become one of the fastest British runners of all-time. Thanks to Dodoo’s expertise, Yard believes he now faster than ever and told RugbyPass: “I have been doing a lot of speed work at Loughborough with Jonas Dodoo, who is one of the best and feel I am faster than before my injury. He has done a great job with me.
Continue reading below…
WATCH: Former Ireland international Darren Cave joins the team as they preview the Guinness Six Nations. Goodey tries to explain what’s gone on at Wasps and the guys give their take on the Championship funding cuts and more.
“He has changed a couple of things in my technique and my speed is completely back, my footwork is there and my work around my knee is designed to keep my strength-based stuff high and it means I don’t go onto the field worried about getting injured. I have been pushing the boundaries and things have fallen into place.”
Yarde works with Dodoo to supplement his training regime at Sale where the club has assembled an international laden squad that currently stands in third place in the Premiership and will be boosted by the debut of Lood de Jager, the Springbok World Cup winning lock in the next two weeks. Yarde has forced his way into the team despite having to battle against fellow test wins Denny Solomona, Chris Ashton and Byron McGuigan to highlight the depth of talent at the club.
ADVERTISEMENT
Fair play. https://t.co/Ic6ovaP6fz
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) February 19, 2020
The endless months of rehabilitation work carried out in Britain and under the specialist advice of American based Bill Knowles, a knee injury expert, forced Yarde to reassess not only his career but his attitude to the sport he loves. Yarde explained: “During the rehab work I realised that when I really apply myself that I am a lot stronger than I realised. There were a lot of dark times and concerns about coming back but I convinced myself I was going to achieve that goal. That was the hardest bit.
“When you do come back and things don’t immediately click there are the doubts about can you play at that level again and I had to break through that barrier. It was more of a battle with myself to be honest and I deleted Twitter and focussed solely on what I could control. One thing I learnt was to stay mentally strong and to keep pushing through.
“I took a lot of things away with me after working with Bill Knowles in terms of how to look after my knee going forward and I learnt a lot in terms of warm ups. We live in a world where a lot of people doubt you and I have tried to quieten the white noise, do the unseen work and find my form. I know when I am playing at my best I am right up there. “
ADVERTISEMENT
Yarde last played for England in their 35-25 win over Argentina in Sante Fe in 2017 and head coach Eddie Jones has been keeping an eye on the Sale wing’s progress. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to play for England again and that is the ultimate goal,” added Yarde. “I had a severe injury which put me out of the squad for the last year and a half and I need to be playing well for Sale.
France are riding a wave of optimism after an unbeaten start to the Guinness Six Nations… with Wales next to test their resolve, @OwainJTJones digs deep in the first part of a two-part series into the reasons behind Les Bleus' renaissancehttps://t.co/FIFhLNV8cK
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) February 18, 2020
“It was a bit of a difficult start because I hadn’t played for a year but I have put the work in off the field and away from the club and am getting back to my best form. I just want to show what I am about and that has been my focus in the last four of five games for Sale. We are third in the table and have shown how good we can play when we do get things right and while the defeat at Saracens was disappointing they adapted better in the conditions.
“The top of the table is really tight and it’s important we get the home wins and we know that Leicester will be confident after their win over Wasps and we will have to be on top form to get the result.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Je suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
25 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
25 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
25 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
25 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
11 Go to comments